The city of Seattle “is gradually increasing the hourly minimum to $15 over several years. Already, though, some employers have not been able to afford the increased minimums. They’ve cut their payrolls, putting off new hiring, reducing hours or letting their workers go, the study found.

The costs to low-wage workers in Seattle outweighed the benefits by a ratio of three to one, according to the study, conducted by a group of economists at the University of Washington who were commissioned by the city. . . . On the whole, the study estimates, the average low-wage worker in the city lost $125 a month because of the hike in the minimum.”

This is sad, but – I guess to show that comic relief is a positive virtue? – the paper then tries to act as though this was an unexpected result.  The study’s “conclusions contradict years of research on the minimum wage,” it asserts.  (I’m serious!  Read it for yourself in the Washington Post, June 26, 2017.)

Perhaps they’re banking on their readers all being ignorant or gullible.  But even my 1967 edition of Samuelson’s Economics textbook says this about minimum wage rates:  “These often hurt those they are designed to help.”  Samuelson, as old-timers remember, was mildly leftist and supported a minimum wage law.  A less ideologically-driven text (University Economics, by Alchian and Allen, 1964 edition) was less sanguine. “…a minimum wage rate above the current market rate will lead to unemployment.”  It was true then, still true.  Only ideological wonks have refused to believe it for the last 45 years.

It’s seldom that the effects of the minimum wage are seen so directly, quickly and blatantly.  I’d imagine the low level of “inflation” recently has allowed the results to be seen more clearly.  (“Inflation” which causes a nominal rise in the general wage structure of a country, often masks the effects of an increase of a minimum wage law.)

The truth has been known for 50 years and longer, but the Siren call of political expediency, coupled with greed by the populace, has overridden it for many decades.   In an age when truth is rejected and hated and covetousness reigns, that’s not likely to change any time soon.

(Post’s story title:  A ‘very credible’ new study on Seattle’s $15 minimum wage has bad news for liberals)

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